WJLA) - A Baltimore city police officer, assigned to the 8th District, is on unpaid suspension amidst allegations he beat and strangled his seven-month-old puppy to death. On Feb. 26, Alec Taylor, 27, a five-year veteran of the Baltimore Police Department, returned to his apartment along the 13000 block of Castle Boulevard in Silver Spring. Upon entering the unit, Taylor noticed his Jack Russell Terrier, named Rocko, had defecated on the carpet. According to police, Taylor became enraged, beating the untrained dog with a mop, then using his bare hands to suffocate the puppy.

Two teenagers have been charged with setting a Jack Russell terrier puppy on fire last month in Buffalo. Seventeen-year-old Diondre Brown and 19-year-old Adell Zeigler of Buffalo appeared in City Court Wednesday on charges of felony animal cruelty. Zeigler was denied bail because of a prior conviction. The judge set bail for Brown at $20,000. The 16-week-old puppy was found on fire in a yard on Buffalo's east side on Oct. 29. Named Phoenix by his rescuers, the dog is recovering at an animal hospital with burned ears, an ankle infection, and blistered eyelids.

Police said that the exact cause of death had yet to be confirmed but it is suspected that the child was killed during an attack by the grandmother's Staffordshire Bull terrier and Jack Russell. Neighbours reported hearing screams of panic as the baby's grandmother ran into the street crying for help. Friends rushed into the house to help and were forced to drag the dogs off the child who was bleeding severely from the attack. The tragedy occurred shortly after midnight on Saturday morning in the town of Ystrad Mynach, 12 miles north of Cardiff. The child was taken Prince...